Just finished reading this thread about Strayer Upton Practical Arithmetics and am very interested in these books. It has been 2 years since this thread and I would very much like to hear more from those have used this curriculum.

Dd completed the First Book as a precursor to Saxon 54. The "little red book," as dd calls it, in combination with memorizing the math facts through the 12's gave her a good foundation for concrete math. I bought the Second Book, and we use it as a supplement for word and practice problems along with other curriculum suggested on the boards.

I have looked at Ray's. In fact I was planning on using it this year and the more I planned and looked the less I liked it. I believe that the Strayor Upton's use of story and that it is geared to being more independent would work better but still would like info.

It can be used as a tool by a skillful math teacher who will teach the concepts. I was taught using it and the result was skill/drill, no comprehension of the concepts. I use it as a supplement occasionally.

I actually like the Strayer-Upton text. We started back with it today after taking a break for a bit. I love how it starts to explain fractions and division right off the bat. I like the word problems also---there's plenty to practice bar diagrams Singapore-style. Nice book, and cheap too!

It can be used as a tool by a skillful math teacher who will teach the concepts. I was taught using it and the result was skill/drill, no comprehension of the concepts. I use it as a supplement occasionally.

I'm glad that wasn't everyone's experience, cuz I really look forward to using this one. I have no idea how anyone can do all of those word problems and have no comprehension of concepts.

I'm talking about place value concepts, and the meaning behind the algorithms. The word problems generally had some sort of key word in the younger grades... "less", "more", "shared". I remember the teacher having us put an A, S, D, or M by the problems to signal the operation, too, effectively removing any practice in reasoning from the lesson. I guess I had a combination of really bad teachers and this math series.

I just picked up this book a few weeks ago to work through myself. My math skills are shockingly bad (I didn't even know my basic math facts) and I liked that there were only three books in the series and that it wasn't a workbook. I've learned SO MUCH and I've only just started! I love how they add columns and how you check all your work along the way. So much more effecient than my old way. I feel like your child would certainly be good with computations after completing this series. As for having an understanding of "why" algorithms work, I'm not so sure. I plan on using the techniques in strayer-upton and using MM along with it to help with the "why".

I'd love to hear from anyone who used the entire 3 book series with their kids and had success.

I bought Ray's last year and wasn't too impressed by how the material was presented. I need much more explanation to understand than it gave. The word problems in it are great and I use those all the time.